Easing back into the real world…

I’m in Somerset this week, at Ki-Aikido summer school. The class schedule is relaxed enough that I’ve been able to get out and about a little bit. I haven’t done huge amounts of foraging while I’ve been here – about a pound of plums the other day that were hanging over a car park in Highbridge, and the odd handful of blackberries from beside the various lanes. Lots of things are starting to ripen nicely, and I expect I’ll have plenty to harvest when I get back to London if it hasn’t all been rained away.

Things to watch for, at least in the south of England, in the next few weeks:

• Hazelnuts–ideally you want to get this when they’re just starting to ripen, if you wait until they’re properly ripe then the squirrels will have the lot.
• Mulberries–these are planted as ornamental trees, usually, but the fruit is quite edible once it gets dark. It doesn’t keep at all so you need to either eat it, juice it, freeze it or jam it the same day you pick it. Personally I tend to eat it straight away.
• Walnuts are getting big now and, just like the hazelnuts, if you want to eat them instead of letting the squirrels take them all, you’ll have to get there quickly.
• Elderberries–some people find that there are laxative effects from eating these raw, although personally I’ve never had a problem with the odd handful. They make good wine, good jam and good juice or syrup. I’ve even had elderberry port, although to be fair I didn’t make it myself.
• Grapes are also quite common as ornamentals and can range from deliciously sweet to rather too tart for eating.
• Apples! Some won’t be ready yet but it’s difficult to tell this year as the weather has been quite odd.
• Blackberries, of course.
• Fennel seeds when they start to ripen, which may be pretty soon. You can use them as a condiment, or sprout them.
• Various other seeds – hedge garlic, rocket, shepherd’s purse and various other wild brassicas are good for sprouting.
• Poppy seeds are edible and have a nice nutty flavour, although collecting any great quantity from the wild can be daunting.

That’s probably all from me until after I’m back to London, unless I find something really spectacular that warrants a post of its own.

Foraging Log 7

Time: Perhaps 2 hours
Place: New River Path, Islington, from Essex Road to Canonbury station.
Gathered: A handful or two of lemon balm, some walnuts for pickling, and a few early-but-edible apples

A friend asked me to arrange some foraging as she was going to be in town, so I did. I had some difficulty choosing a location but decided on the New River Path because there is quite a variety of plants there and also because I had promised to point out Amelanchier alnifolia. It’s also quite handy for getting to the Pembury Tavern, which has good food and good beer and, on this occasion, also had Morris dancers.

There were quite a few of us – 6 or 7. I pointed out many of the plants I could identify, and some I couldn’t. It was hot and sunny and we were glad of the shade provided by the trees. We gathered some lemon balm near the beginning. The wild strawberries were pretty much past eating so we left them well alone; edible weeds in a vacant carpark behind a closed branch of MECCA weren’t looking particularly healthy so they were left. Many lovely walnuts were picked from the walnut tree, though, and the little red heart-shaped apples are nearly ripe.

Foraging Log 3

Time: About ninety minutes on a Friday evening
Place: New River Path, Islington, N1, from Essex Road to St. Paul’s Road.
Gathered: nothing, because I wasn’t really hungry, and didn’t have a sensible way to carry anything
Other notables: I saw a heron!

Islington is where I was living in 2004, just before I started getting seriously interested in foraging. It was interesting to re-visit my old stomping-ground, and view it through more educated eyes. Islington doesn’t have a lot of green space, but the space that exists is very pleasant.

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), with its mint-like leaves and fresh scent, was the first edible I spotted on this particular walk. It does make a lovely tea. This was soon followed by a real treasure – wild strawberries (Fragaria vesca)! I’ve not seen them in London before now, so I was quite pleased. I didn’t pick any, though. As I kept walking I saw a fair amount of feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium), as well as violets growing on ornamental rocks.

A churchyard contained fenced-off areas of “bog garden” – I think they’ll need more rain to get established properly, but at least the gardener is trying to give them a chance. There was also a healthy walnut tree, and something that is some sort of peach. The fruits were green and hard and fuzzy. I will definitely be going back later in the year for closer investigation! Unfortunately that tree did not look terribly healthy, though whether the problem is one of old age or disease I cannot tell.

Across Canonbury Road, then, and into the area of the path where there is actually some “river”. The New River is now a very slow-moving stream, thick with algae. I saw a huge heron, although of course I do not eat those, and several ducks. One of the plants I remember from previous explorations of the New River Path is also looking like it should provide well this year. This is a variety of apple, I’m not sure which, that produces small, heart-shaped apples, pink and sweet, with a line of darker pink in their flesh partway in. There are three or four of these spread through the park from Canonbury Road to St. Paul’s Road, and I always mean to go back in apple season and get some, as they would look fantastic dried.

I also saw several roses which will produce lovely hips, white valerian amongst a patch of ivy, a second probably-peach tree, a few stands of bamboo, a lone Saskatoon berry tree, various planted ornamental herbs, and more willow than you could shake a stick at.

Further on again, after crossing a bridge, I found a few bushes that I’ve not yet identified. I cannot decide whether they might be cloudberries or salmonberries. The fruits resemble cloudberries more, but the flowers are pink rather than white, like salmonberries. I didn’t eat any – I never do if I don’t know what something is – but I will be going back to have a closer look.

All along the stream, on the other side of course, were plenty of elder trees and blackberries. There were a few on the accessible side too.

Near the exit at St. Paul’s Road there was a rather magnificent fennel plant, and various ornamental herbs, some of which I believe must be related to tansy. It was starting to get dark at this point, and I didn’t really want to hang around on my own trying to identify plants in poor light.

Foraging Log 2

Time: Around an hour on a Wednesday evening
Place: Millwall Park, E14
Gathered: Enough fennel for a large salad, a few leaves of wormwood for tea, but there was lots else if we’d wanted it. Later and not actually in Millwall Park, a couple of cherries each.

A week or so ago, I went for a gentle amble around Millwall Park with a friend. This particular friend hasn’t done much foraging, so I found myself pointing out many plants I might not normally look twice at.

The south end of the park has gardens, mostly full of roses and lavender; the woodchips are a good place to look for fungi later in the year but there were none visible that evening despite recent rain. There are a few areas in the south and west of the park where the grass is allowed to grow long, and in those there a multitude of wild greens. These include Shepherd’s Purse, Narrow-leaved Plantain, Broad-leaved Plantain, Fat hen, chamomile, mugwort, yarrow, wormwood, bladder campion, wild rocket, sand leek, dock, dandelion, wild fennel and various types of wild mustard or cabbage.

Some of these, like Shepherd’s Purse, campion, wild rocket, leek, fennel, and dandelion, make excellent salad leaves; they can also be cooked. Shepherd’s Purse is related to cabbage and the seeds in their heart-shaped pods can be used, as well as the leaves, to add a peppery flavour to soups and salads. Wild rocket is also quite peppery – far more so than the spiritless, half-wilted leaves available in plastic bags from supermarkets – and should be used with care, more as a condiment than a basis for an entire salad. Dandelion leaves are best in the early spring when they are young and tender, later on they tend to be quite bitter. Sand leeks are pretty much done for this year, but when they’re around in earlier months they can be picked and used just like chives. Campion leaves are quite delicious, I think they taste like a cross between lettuce and fresh peas, but the older ones are a little hairy sometimes so stick to the younger ones. Various mustard and wild cabbage leaves are also edible raw, but tend to be quite strong in flavour.
Chamomile, mugwort, yarrow and wormwood are known more for their medicinal properties than plain food value. I’ve long used chamomile flower tea as an anti-spasmodic. Wormwood and mugwort leaves are both used as flavourings and contain thujone, the active component in absinthe – they should be taken in moderation. Yarrow leaves are a useful astringent, and are said to make a wonderfully cooling tea in summer.

Other plants spotted that evening do need to be cooked. I’m not actually sure whether Fat Hen can be consumed raw, but both it and dock leaves contain oxalic acid, which can cause problems with iron absorption if eaten in excess. I haven’t tried either wide-leaved or narrow-leaved plantain myself; my understanding is that they are edible, but tough, and require quite a bit of cooking to be eaten easily.

It’s comforting to know I can throw together a soup and a salad from wild ingredients near most parks for a good portion of the year, but we’d already eaten, so this wasn’t necessary. We did venture a little further north into Mudchute Farm, and sampled the first cherries of the year, straight from the tree. Delicious!

FORAGING TIPS FOR BEGINNERS: I. PAY ATTENTION!

This is the first article in a series of foraging tips for beginners.

The ability to pay attention to detail is crucial in successful foraging. Many people walk past huge amounts of food on a daily basis, but they don’t know it is there because all they see is “green stuff”. A large amount of that green stuff is tasty, nutritious and free. There are no plants that are not worth identifying.

Part of paying attention to detail is about familiarity and knowing what to look for, but a larger part of it is cultivating a sense of curiosity. Take a closer look at that patch of waste ground by the supermarket – what do you see? Dandelions? Stinging nettles? What else is there? Go for a walk around the block and see if you can identify the trees on your street. To begin with it’s enough to notice that some of them have needles and others have true leaves. Later, you can find out how many of them are native to your area. Are any of them edible species? Find a park to eat your lunch in, and make a task of walking around some part of it each day; become familiar with the flora and fauna there.

Don’t just rely on your eyesight, either. Stop and smell the roses, literally. Also smell the peppery wild rocket, the pungent hedge garlic and the cool, sweet fennel. Feel the cat’s-tongue roughness of goose grass. It’s probably a good idea to avoid smelling or touching the nettles, though, unless you actually like being stung.

After a while of making an effort to pay attention, you’ll start to notice things. You’ll start to notice the shapes of leaves, stems and flowers, rather than just the colour; you’ll start to see how the seasons change your local landscape. This is incredibly useful. Those nettles might be too old and stringy to be any good for eating now, but they’ll be back come springtime.

Once you have developed the habit of learning details past the general differentiating characteristics most of us are taught in childhood, (“The big green tree…”), you’ll find the world is richer than you might have imagined. I think it’s worth the effort just for that, even if you don’t eat any of what you study.